Google announces the £1,049 Chromebook Pixel

[SPM]

We already have plenty of laptop style Android devices which are cheap and have access to a huge number of installable apps . Why would anyone want a £1000 laptop with an OS less flexible than the one in their phone? Quoted battery life is also a paltry 5 hours which is miserly for a stripped down cloud based laptop. I can see why you might want to spend a grand on the MacBook or a Surface Pro but Google must be crazy to think anyone will spend that kind of money on a Chromebook?

 

I just don't get why Google keep persisting with ChromeOS http://staticc2.cdngeek.net/images/smilies/confused.png

 

Sysadmins spend a lot of time limiting and locking down things for security and simplicity/ease of use and maintenance. Less flexible is a good thing for everybody other than computer hobbyists, provided it does the things you need it to do, and does it in an efficient and convenient way. You can also run Windows or OSX or Linux apps on them for the occasions when you need to - when I say run, I mean run them the same way Chromebooks run all apps - on a LAN or Cloud server (in this case a Windows terminal server or Linux or Mac server).

 

Chrome OS devices are brilliant for useage where these requirements are met - they are Zero Maintenance, Zero Touch Management (ie. no admin has to ever log in or touch Chromebook/box devices), with sub 10 second boot, instant pause/resume when you open and shut the lid, and all your data and apps can be accessed on any device with a web browser (try doing that with Windows or Macbooks data or apps). They are secure managed networked computers out of the box, and don't need any server hardware or maintenance spend to achieve all this because they use Google's and ASP providers' Cloud servers to achieve this, although you can add your own if you want.

 

They are 10% of Currys/PC World's total computer sales right now, and this will only increase. They will be everywhere within a couple of years.

Edited March 2, 2013 by SPM

[SPM]

What about this?

 

1. Buy ChromeBook Pixel.
   
2. Upgrade your Google Drive to 1TB.
   
3. Sell the ChromeBook Pixel the next day on eBay.
   

You will now have $1,800's worth of cloud storage for free!

 

Google is giving it away because they know full well you aren't going to use up anything like that amount in reality. It is a psychological crutch for Windows users who are used to Windows filling up whatever size of hard drive you may have with rubbish within a year or two.

[SPM]

Indeed £1000+ what market is this aimed at?

 

Ben

 

I can't afford it either. I would say it is a reference device to demo future technologies to allow OEMs to develop cheaper mass market designs, Chrome Web Apps developers to develop high end Native Client Chrome apps like games, and early adopters to try it out. Although they haven't really taken off yet, high res screens and touchscreens, will become more common, and Portable Native Client is due to be ready this summer - hence the i5 CPU. I would expect the features to appear on different devices in different combinations.

[Arthur]

The speed advantage of USB 3.0 isn't particularly useful on a device that uses local storage only for downloads.

That's true, but for me it's the principal more than anything. If the chipset includes USB 3.0 support (as it almost certainly does), then the device should have USB 3.0 ports too.

 

The other big advantage to USB 3.0 is that it is more power efficient. Surely a good thing to have on a portable computer with a Core i5 processor?

 

More importantly, SuperSpeed USB enables considerable power savings by enabling both upstream and downstream ports to initiate lower power states on the link. In addition, multiple link power states are defined, enabling local power management control and, therefore, improved power usage efficiency. Eliminating polling and broadcasting also went a long way toward reducing power requirements. Finally, the increased speed and efficiency of USB 3.0 bus, combined with the ability to use data streaming for bulk transfers, further reduces the power profile of these devices. Typically, the faster a data transfer completes, the faster system components can return to a low-power state. The USB-IF estimates the system power necessary to complete a 20 MB SuperSpeed data transfer will be 25 percent lower than is possible using USB 2.0. (Source)